Sewikly's

For years I worked downtown at the Main Post Office. I always worked nights, and would be getting off work around seven in the morning, heading for home for some much needed sleep. These were all cookie-cutter days. One day just melted into the next one. And you could never get enough sleep.
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One morning I was driving home in my crappy old Pinto, and I saw this really nice looking girl on the Burnside Bridge. She was hitch-hiking. She was not wearing shoes, and it was starting to rain. I stopped to give her a lift.
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I asked her where she was going.
She told me she was going to a dart bar on Hawthorne named Sewikly's.
Since I lived near there, I offered to drop her off at this bar. Then I drove home and got some sleep.
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About a week ago, Dan and I were out late one night, just walking around. We stopped in front of this dart bar, Sewikly's. Through the window I could see a guy and his buddy and his girlfriend playing darts. I don't know anything about darts. I walked in there and talked to these people. Dan was too shy to do this. He spent the next five minutes or so by the curb, watching the cars drive by. I can be such an embarrassment!
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These nice people were happy to take a moment to talk to a perfect stranger. They explained to me that the game they were playing was called "Cricket". You show your ID at the bar, and they give you the darts to play with. You keep score on a chalk board. Pretty simple.
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I'm going to learn how to play this game. And since for the price of a soda (I do not drink) you can easily spend an hour in there playing darts with your friends, and not spend much.
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While I was there, I told these people the story about the hitch-hiking girl from so long ago. The girl with no shoes.
And then I had an "Aha!" moment.
At Sewikly's, I was actually finishing a story that this strange girl had begun some twenty years ago.

Mr. Charming